Video: CNN hits ACORN — again — for bogus voter registrations

posted at 9:15 pm on October 13, 2008 by Allahpundit

Via Ace, the detail about the 2,100 phony registrations in Indiana is recycled from the segment Ed posted on Friday but the close-up of the registration forms and the extended interview with ACORN’s lawyer are new, proving that not only is CNN sticking with this story but they’re actually building it out. And not just this one. Remember, Drew Griffin’s also responsible for that clear-eyed, bolt-from-the-blue look at Obama’s relationship with Ayers. What on earth’s going on over there? Are they worried that MSNBC will be the Obama administration’s mouthpiece of choice so they’re slapping him around a bit as a warning not to make enemies of them?

Serious exit question: How, precisely, do people think ACORN’s going to influence the election? The worry, as I’ve understood it, is that the race will narrow and we’ll end up a la 2000 in a cliffhanger with one or two counties in some swing state deciding who wins. In that scenario, a few thousand phony votes would be monumental. Judging from some of the e-mail we’re getting, though, true believers think something bigger’s going on, as though an Obama win by a few percentage points — which would mean a margin of a few million votes — would be inherently shady. Explain to me how ACORN’s supposedly planning to convert these bogus registrations into actual bogus votes on a mass scale.

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AP, in my mind the problem is in the totality of Obama’s shady practices. Problem 1) ACORN may get some of their illegally registered voters to vote. Problem 2) While technically not illegal?, ACORN claims to be nonpartisan and not involved in any specific campaign, but they only go to heavily Democratic counties and have stepped up their efforts just for this election. Problem 3) Obama is raising million of dollars from international sources (and I believe millions more from the same sources who got wise by bringing their money here and sending it to Obama in small increments). This, if ever properly investigated, will only occur after the election is over. These problems when combined could very easily equal a stolen election.

FYI, in most states, by state law, organizations conducting voter registration drives are required to turn in all the forms they collect. So ACORN cannot engage in discrimination by tossing out *any* forms, period.

In fact, ACORN generally categorizes the forms they receive as “good”, “incomplete”, and “questionable”, and turns them in in separate bundles with cover sheets indicating that. Most of the ones they are being accused of fraud on are ones they themselves categorized as “questionable”.

One thing I haven’t seen addressed anywhere that perhaps Ed or Allah could investigate is the exact nature of the $800,000 contract between the Obama campaign and ACORN. What were the terms? Was ACORN simply contracted based on “man hours” of workers registering voters in specific states or did they have deliverables such as the number of Democrats registered, the number of blacks registered, the number of “good” registrations, etc?

It seems to me based on the reports from Lake County, Indiana (indicating that the first two thousand registrations ACORN turned in were all invalid), suggest that if ACORN was contracted on deliverables, they are in breach of contract. If O!’s campaign does not ask for at least a partial refund, then one wonders if the real deliverable was something other than “good registrations,” ie: was ACORN hired to create chaos?

Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot with a fake address, officials said yesterday, as they revealed that nearly 4,000 registration applications supplied by the left-leaning activist group were suspect.

The vote of Darnell Nash, one of four people subpoenaed in a Cuyahoga County probe of ACORN’s voter-registration activities, was canceled and his case was turned over to local prosecutors and law enforcement, Board of Elections officials said yesterday.

The bigger picture, from a radical Marxist perspective, is confidence. If confidence in the free market/economic system and confidence in the electoral system can be undermined, then Ayers, ACORN, and Soros have succeeded beyond just the election of Obama and supermajorities in the House and Senate. They do not want to come up ‘just short’ like in 2000. With a lack of confidence in the economy and electoral system, Obama, Congress, and the Courts can step in and ‘fix’ everything with even more relaxed voter laws and more govt take-over of the economy. Can you say ‘Hugo Chavez’? That is the model that Obama will probably follow. Will we have elections in 2012?